To formally reflect the project of imagining institutionality otherwise toward alternative humanities, the forum “Emergent Critical Analytics for Alternative Humanities” (http://csalateral.org/wp/) published in Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association in June 2016 will stage conversations between established scholars and emerging scholars (students and junior faculty). Conventional institutional structures often premise a generational approach that privileges linear models of academic development, which can often be reproduced even within formal and informal practices of mentorship. In contrast, we aim to lateralize this relationship by juxtaposing comments by scholars across various institutional positions and intellectual trajectories side-by-side so that unexpected new relationalities may arise from these collaborations. In what ways might the stakes and uses of these analytics—settler colonialism, new materialisms, disability, and institutionality—in research and teaching shift based on one’s professional position and locale? How might students, recent graduates, contingent faculty, nontenured or junior scholars approach these analytics otherwise?

To further contemplate these inquiries, we now solicit responses (1000-2000 words), especially from emergent student and junior faculty voices to the forum (http://csalateral.org/wp/). Submissions may (a) respond to one or more of the four analytics posed here or (b) propose another analytic in line with the objectives outlined in this forum. Responses should be submitted for consideration to Chris A. Eng (ceng@gradcenter.cuny.edu) and Amy K. King (aking83@gatech.edu) by October 1, 2016. We invite further conversations to collectively reflect on and strategize about the continual practices needed for these emergent critical analytics and the models necessary for materializing alternative humanities.